The Adaptations Of A Polar Bear
by constance
Summary: My class winds up in Mossflower after an *unfortunate* incident. *Grinz* Guess what happens. Re-uploaded!
1. Poof

"Now, can anyone tell me the adaptations of a polar bear?" A slightly distorted polar bear dominated the screen, courtesy of the electricity- consuming (who cares?) visualizer. Mrs. Tong looked around the class, "Anyone?  
  
"Bzzt."  
  
"Mrs. Tong."  
  
"Yes, you know an adaptation?" Mrs. Tong looked extremely glad. Finally someone volunteered an answer; she usually ended up answering herself. The perils of being a teacher.  
  
"Bzzzt."  
  
"It's the visualizer, Mrs. Tong."  
  
"What? Repeat that again, Shu Ning."  
  
"Bzzzzzzt. Snap. Crackle."  
  
"The visualizer!"  
  
"Bzzzzzzzzzzt."  
  
"Visualizer? What visualizer?"  
  
"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. Snap crackle. Boom." The lights go off.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Five minutes later.  
  
It's Ms. Ng to the rescue! Drumroll  
  
Ms. Ng leapt forwards with a maniacal look in her eyes, "Visualizer problem, is it?" Frantic nods.  
  
Ms. Ng seemed satisfied with the response and launched herself upon the mess of wires on the classroom floor. After a gruelling five minutes of chucking wires here, pulling a plug there, she emerged, somewhat triumphantly, waving two identical wires like trophies. "I've got it!"  
  
Then she fell, tripping over the wires, landing on her face. "Aiyah."  
  
Ms. Ng got up, regained what was left of her dignity, and jammed the wires together.  
  
"BOOM." Immediately, the classroom filled was with white smoke. And voices.  
  
"Damn, what happened?"  
  
"MS. NG!!!!!!!!" Sara shouted.  
  
"Sorry lah. Must be technical problem lor, aiyoh." Ms. Ng replied.  
  
"Die lah, Ms. Ng blew up the visualizer!"  
  
"Dammit!"  
  
"Oh shit!"  
  
Someone censor this.  
  
When the ominous smoke finally cleared, Ms. Ng found herself surrounded by shocked/ angry/ distraught/ worried/ WHATEVER Primary six students. She backed away slightly, "aiyoh, must be technical problem lor."  
  
Shu Ning's voice broke the uncomfortable silence that followed. "Where are we?"  
  
"Classroom lor, where else?" Mei Keen snapped, her eyes not leaving the math teacher.  
  
"Classroom got trees and flowers meh?" Shu Ning shot back.  
  
Everybody whirled around simultaneously. And their jaws dropped.  
  
"Where are we?" Sara was the first to speak.  
  
Shu Ning grinned triumphantly. "See? See? I told you,"  
  
"Shaddap lah," Mei Keen reached over and whacked her on the head as she continued to stare apprehensively at the surroundings as though she expected Osama Bin Laden to pop out at any moment. 


	2. Reported Speech worksheets and Faulty Vi...

**The Adaptations of a Polar Bear, chapter 2:**

  "How did we end up here?" Yen Lin muttered.

  "I have no idea, but I suspect Ms. Ng had something to do with it…" Mei Keen replied sarcastically.

  Ms. Ng had backed away until she could back away no more, trying to appear inconspicuous. A few uncomfortable moments elapsed.

  Then the whole class started conversing with each other again as if nothing had happened. They had long learned that weird things occurring were nothing out of the ordinary – the trick was to learn to ignore anything and everything strange going on. In plain and simple Singlish (the Singaporean style of English), this was called _bochap_. (Don't-care attitude)

  Then someone fell out of a nearby tree…

~~

  Ms. Lim walked up the bridge, carrying an ominous stack of papers. _The class isn't going to be very happy,_ she thought, glancing down at the first question printed on the paper. Grammer worksheets were bad enough a shot to give out to the mentally unstable class of twenty-three, but the fact that these were _reported speech_ worksheets made the problem just a tad trickier… She sighed.

  Rounding the corner, she passed 6H. Mdm. Azizah was currently in there, rambling to them about Singapore's seperation from Malaysia in 1965. _That's funny,_ she thought to herself again, _6I isn't usually this quiet…_   Then she saw the slight tendrils of smoke emitting from the classroom doors and windows. Ms. Lim groaned mentally. _Were they *so* bored up to the point that they decided to start a campfire? Here we go again…_

  She seriously considered running to activate the fire alarm at that point in time, but then common sense kicked out instinct, and she just continued in the general direction of her form class. 

  Knowing 6I, anything could happen, but there had been no fatal incidents so far, in their extremely notorious history, and she did not expect that record to be broken… Yet. She, however, would not even be vaguely surprised if she entered the room to find a pile of what looked like English Comprehension worksheets in a burning pile. "They boycotted goods…" Mdm. Azizah's voice floated from 6H as she went on to drone about communists. Boycott could definitely not be ruled out… They were, after all, capable of anything.

  _But isn't it Science now? I'm sure Mrs. Tong would not allow them to start a fire… Ah well, maybe they're conducting an experiment. _Shrugging off the dark thoughts in the best way she could, she walked to the door.

  But nothing prepared her for the sight that met her. The classroom was _empty_. Well, empty as in there was nobody there. 6I could never be literally empty, because there would _always_ be randomly assorted things lying around on the floor… And for 6I's case, randomly assorted _meant_ randomly assorted, ranging from nice, normal Pilot G2 pens, to the not-so-normal suspicious-looking crumpled pieces of foolscap (try and guess), to the absolutely absurd category of items such as purple stuffed dogs that survived three days in the class dustpan. Yep, 6I was such a nice normal class.

  Back to the story. 6I was _completely_ deprived of human beings, and a black visualizer, still emitting sparks and a lot of smoke, stood among the thick, grey mist. 

  She walked in, waving the smoke from her face with her free hand, and reached out to touch the sparking visualizer. Silly thing to do, but she _was_ Ms. Lim after all… 

  The visualizer blew up again.


	3. It's all Ms Ng's fault

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 3 

**I have started this on a school comp with a sucky keyboard, so ignore any typo errors. Bleargh.**

When Ms Lim regained her sight, senses, and her mind, she found herself surrounded by twenty-five faces. 

_Was I abducted by aliens?_ She thought groggily, and then mentally berated herself. Let's do this again. **_Have aliens abducted me_**_? _

Ms. Lim could not stand bad grammer. It was in her blood as an English teacher, to _correct bad grammer. _

As her vision cleared, she realised that those faces were familiar. Very familiar. In fact, twenty-three of those faces among there were the very faces that haunted her dreams at night and terrorised her in the day.

It was 6I, every single twenty-three mad beings of 6I.

_Oh no, what did they do now?_

"Hi Ms Lim!" Sara's voice broke the shocked silence. She proceeded to wave like a mad woman, an up-to-no-good grin on her face. Yvonne followed her example, and in her bleary confused mind, Ms Lim thought that they resembled twin windmills.

"Sara, what happened? Where are we?" Ms. Lim had registered the fact that there was a hell of a lot of trees surrounding her. _Unfamiliar, non-native_ trees, to be exact. 

She was very much tempted to ask "what did you do _this _time" as well, but decided against it. Her class would tell her themselves, later when her mind was in a clearer state.

She picked herself up from the ground, expectantly waiting for an answer. 6I had turned unusually quiet. She noted that Mrs. Tong and Ms. Ng stood in the background, and mentally sighed in relief. _Good, at least I wont have to handle them alone._

6I was never sane, and Ms. Lim had seen more than enough scenarios to gather almost an island full of evidence of why they should have been institutionalised in the local mental hospital.

"We don't know where we are, Ms Lim." Sam Wong answered, in a somewhat awkward manner.

"The trees here are not found in Singapore. I don't think…" Mrs Tong's voice faltered before she finished her sentence. "I don't think we are even _in_ Singapore right now, to be truthful."

"How did you get here?" 

"Oh!" Memories of what happened before flooded Ms. Lim's now-awake mind. "I entered the classroom and I saw the visualizer emitting smoke, so I touched it, and it blew up, and I ended up here."

Ms. Ng tried to back into the shadows, but it was too late. She was pinned in her place by twenty-three death glares.

"Sorry lah, it was a technical error…"

**Short and very lousy, I know. But I'm rushing, and I have to go home in a while. Argh. I'll probably update in… one month. :p**


	4. Mossflower!

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 4  
  
This is coming up earlier than expected. School has closed down thanks to the SARS disease going around, so we have a *holiday* until April 6. Yay, what fun.  
  
After a lot of chaos, 6I finally calmed down. A few assorted groups sat about on the grass here and there, playing "concentration" and the likes. Diana had decided to drown herself in her "Silmarillion" again, and Sara was pestering her, only to receive death glares in return. If looks could kill.  
  
Then Yvonne screamed. And time stopped. The "concentration" people froze somewhere in "2255", and Nicolette appeared to be fuming, apparently because she was about to proceed to demolish Shu Ning when Yvonne screamed.  
  
Diana did not respond, only rolled her eyes and turned back to the sack of Gondolin, with Po Linn hanging over her shoulder, squealing "Glorfy".  
  
"What's wrong, 'Vonne?" Sara asked.  
  
"A squirrel."  
  
"Nothing new about it. Squirrels are common in the woods." Diana muttered absently, her nose still buried in the book.  
  
"But. But it's big and it's dressed in clothes! And. And it has the sharp arrow thingy like the pointy-eared Elf has in Lord of The Rings!!!!!!!"  
  
Po Linn's head shot up at the mention of "Elf" and "Lord of The Rings".  
  
"Where?"  
  
Yvonne pointed, looking positively terrified.  
  
Everybody turned, and they saw the squirrel. Like Yvonne had described it, it was in clothes (a tunic to be exact), and it had a bow with a quiver full of "sharp arrow thingys".  
  
"Bloody hell!" Po Linn's voice broke the shocked silence. "We're in Mossflower."  
  
The squirrel, startled by Po Linn's abrupt (and somewhat vulgar) outburst, had disappeared into the trees.  
  
"What's 'Mossflower'?" Sam Cheok asked, puzzled.  
  
"Basically, it is Redwall in your language, and thus it is where we are right now." Shu Wen ventured to explain.  
  
Mei Keen rolled her eyes.  
  
Sam Cheok glared at Shu Wen.  
  
Shu Wen smirked back.  
  
Mrs. Tong looked blank.  
  
Po Linn was muttering Elvish curses that nobody understood.  
  
Diana, the ultimate Redwall fanatic, was ecstatic. 


	5. Chinese Workbooks

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 6 

**SARS holiday extended, what fun. Here it is, chapter 6… **

**People who have read out of my green notebook, here is an… unexpected change. Heh.  **

This chapter's dedicated to Owl, because her birthday was around a week ago. Happy Birthday, Joey!

"I'm thirsty."

"Shaddap lah."

"Where the hell are we now?"

"Diana, you're the Redwall expert. Lead us out of here!"

"What does it look like I'm *trying* to do?"

"CAN YOU ALL FRIGGIN' SHADDAP?"

6I was desperately lost in Mossflower Woods. They had been wandering around for ten minutes, and all they saw was trees, trees, and more trees. They decided to stop to rest; no point getting even more lost, as Diana pointed out.

And so they stopped to rest and wait, and for Evelyn and company to play "Concentration" again.

~*~ 

The bell rang, and both students and teacher sighed in relief mentally. As Mdm. Azizah picked up her books and walked out of 6H, she sighed. _Out of one Hell-hole, and into another. _

It was time for her lesson with 6I. Sometimes she hated Thursdays. The day began with teaching an abnormal 6J Social Studies, followed by the scarily smart and crazy 6H, and then to the totally mentally deranged 6I. Then recess followed, a time when she could recover her skittish nerves for a pathetic half hour or so before facing a bunch of screaming eight-year-olds to teach them math.

Life was so good to her.

She was surprised to find the class empty when she stepped inside. There was a smoking visualizer, however, and Mdm. Azizah strongly suspected that Sara Ang and a penknife had something to do with it. _There goes the electricity bill,_ she thought, and jumped when she heard someone behind her. 

"What happen ah?" 

It was Zhao Lao Shi (Mrs. Teo, or teacher Zhao, literally in Chinese). Mdm. Azizah heaved a sigh of relief. _At least it's not the principal…_

Zhao normally spoke Chinese, since she was 6I's Chinese teacher. But since Mdm. Azizah was Malay, she had no choice but to switch to a faulty English. 

"I don't know…"

Zhao shifted a stack of Chinese workbooks, panting slightly. She was, after all, around her fifties, and the workbooks were relatively heavy, with dirty and crumpled pages. She looked for a place to put them down, and noticed that the teacher's desk was occupied with water bottles, and Mrs. Tong's plastic tray of papers and files.

So she put it onto the visualizer. A workbook corner came in contact with the sparking wire, and the abused visualizer blew up again for the third time that day.

~*~

The group now consisting of twenty-six was none too surprised when two more people fell out of the sky. But then Po Linn paled as she recognized the newcomers as they untangled themselves. 

It was their Social Studies (and for her case, netball as well) teacher, as well as their Chinese teacher. 

"Mdm. Azizah! Zhao Lao Shi, what are you doing here?" Sam. Wong asked in the most polite manner she could.

"What's happened to the visualizer?" Mdm. Azizah asked, "It blew up, I think, and that is going to jack up the electricity bill…"

"It blew up too, for us, and we all landed here…" 

Then the Chinese group-leaders all scurried forward when they saw the stack of workbooks lying on the ground. By instinct as well as initiative, they started to hand them around. Zhao Lao Shi looked quite dazed to notice, but she nodded and gave a very distant "thank you" to them in Chinese.

Po Linn swore as her workbook whacked her on the head, courtesy of Sara. 

"Oi, Fo, your workbook!"

"Bloody hell, Sara!"

Inez grinned and waggled her finger at the scowling netballer. "Minus five points, Fo."

Shu Wen rolled her eyes. "Now, all we need is Miss Sue Tan to drop from the sky and the party will be complete, yeah?"

Mdm. Azizah seemed terrified at the prospect. "Don't you think the electricity bill will skyrocket that way?"

"Exactly," Sara Ang grinned. 


	6. Marlfox Marlfox Marlfox!

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 6 

This is a school computer, and thus I am using a school keyboard, which as expected, sucks. But anywayz, school has reopened again from the SARS closure (which could have been longer in my opinions) so updates will be rare. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The party of twenty-eight trudged none too silently through the thick shrubbery of the woods. 

As far as Diana and the other Redwall readers were concerned, they were lost, no doubt about it, and that it would have been wiser to stay put until, some way or another, a map chanced itself into their reach (which was more than impossible). And knowing how large Mossflower Woods could be, they were quite against the group moving.

As far as all the others were concerned, they were lost, no doubt about it, and they wanted to get to civilization as soon as possible because they were hungry, hot, and thirsty.

And so the decision of the majority overruled the decision of the Redwall fanatics, and thus they moved on. 

The sun was not helping either, and it continued to beat down on their backs. Plus, they wore, over their P.E. T-shirts (it was Monday, P.E. day), *dark blue* pinafores.

"We are like **so** hopelessly lost," Diana muttered grumpily.

"I thought you were a Redwall expert," Mei Keen replied just as grumpily, as she matched the pace of the fuming bookworm.

Diana flared up, "I don't go memorising Redwall maps, you know!"

And so on.

~*~

Miss Sue Tan walked up the lavender coloured bridge on the fourth floor, and turned right, to head down the notoriously notorious corridor that housed 6H, 6J, and of course, 6I.

Not that it was her job; she taught the P5s. But she saw the lights fans on in 6I, with nobody in the classroom, and thus had deigned to go over to perform the rightful duty every responsible citizen should have done. She went to turn off the fans. 

Passing 6H, which was having Chinese at the moment, she saw the tendrils of smoke emitting from the 6I classroom door and paused for a bit. "Oh my," Ms. Tan said softly to herself and bravely stepped in.

The classroom was engulfed in smoke, but there was no fire. Reasoning to herself that the men from the Ministry of Environment were probably fumigating the field, she coughed a little and waved the smoke away from her face, she stepped forward and nearly tripped upon Diana's "Marlfox", which had, for some strange reason or another, landed on the floor. Picking it up, she  unintentionally touched a corner of the visualizer. 

And it blew up again.

~*~

Nobody (with the exception of Zhao Lao Shi) even jumped when yet another teacher dropped down on them in the middle of nowhere. 

"Hi Ms. Tan!"

The welcome reception was all ready this time, and they sounded a little too cheerful for the present predicament.

"What am I doing here?"

"Join the club, Ms. Tan!"

Then Diana gave a loud gasp and ran over to her ex-English teacher and literally snatched something out of her grasp! "My Marlfox!"


	7. Finally

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 7  
  
Argh. Another chapter typed out on a school comp. I seem to be *living* my computer life in the library lately. Anywayz, netball was for Sec. Ones turn out to be on Thursdays, it's raining damn heavily. What fun.  
  
On with the chapter!  
  
"Look, if the ford is over here, Redwall would be over there!"  
  
"But how do you know that we're on that side of the ford and not this?"  
  
"Look, if this is north and that is south, then we should be on that side of the - "  
  
Diana and Po Linn were arguing. Shu had stayed out of the argument, even though she read the books. Reason? She sucked at geography and had no sense of direction at all. (And since Shu is the author of this fic, I think I am saying a lot about myself)  
  
Po Linn jabbed a finger at somewhere along the ford printed upon the map and said loudly, cutting off Diana's argument. "But look here. If Redwall is on this bloody side, won't we be this side instead of that?"  
  
At this futile argument, Sara had been sniggering at the side all the while, and Diana now shot her a thirtieth death glance as she retaliated to Po Linn's very. clear and understandable argument.  
  
The Owl and Sam Wong's Homework Club (OASWHC) were all diligently doing corrections for their Chinese workbooks with green pens, which had been recovered from Owl's pocket. Zhao Lao Shi was hovering above them, correcting the way they wrote this word and that, and telling them the difference between "that funny word" on the right and "the even funnier word" on the right.  
  
The rest of the class was just sitting around.  
  
And then the loud peals of a bell broke the not-so-tranquil surroundings, cutting short Po Linn's reply to Diana's reply, making the rest of the class jump, and causing the OASWHC to stall their ever-moving green pens and look up.  
  
Simultaneously, the heads of the Redwall fanatics shot up, and they gave each other a cursory glance before they turned in the direction of the bells.  
  
"If the bells are coming from that direction." Po Linn muttered, staring off into the distance.  
  
"Then Redwall is that way!" Diana finished, pointing furiously at her Marlfox and shooting a triumphant glance at Po Linn. "See, I told you!"  
  
"Fine."  
  
Gathering the rest of the class up, the Redwall readers herded them (like sheep) in Diana's pointed direction. 


	8. Sabotage

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 8 

**NAPFA Day today! Yay… It's gonna start in about… checks watch 29 minutes. **

Another chappie typed out in the library. For once, the keyboard is functioning properly, but now the mouse cannot be controlled very well… Damn it all.

Auma fixed the young squirrel before her with a stare. "You say that a group of… strange beings are coming in our direction?"

Sam nodded. "And they – well, at least one of them speaks in a very… uncouth manner."

Constance raised an eyebrow.

Abbot Mordalfus did not seem surprised at all at the squirrel's report. In fact, he smiled and leaned back. "Just as I hoped; they would arrive today." Turning to the rest of his puzzled abbey friends, he said, "prepare a reception for them; they have been my long-expected guests."

~*~

"_That's_ Redwall?"

"Yes, that's Redwall. Why?"

"Nothing… Good, at least we can rest now…"

Diana sighed impatiently. "Why don't we _go in_?"

"… Good point."

After a great deal of discussion, everybody turned and fixed Ms. Ng with… _strange _grins.

Sara bowed gallantly to the math teacher. "Ms. Ng, after a great deal of discussion, we have _decided_ that you can have the _honour_ of knocking on their… _door._"

Ms. Ng paled, but judging from the numerous pairs of gleaming eyes that were fixed on her, she knew she had absolutely no choice at all. Ms. Ng gulped.

"Are they hostile? Those people in there?" She ventured a shaky question. 

Diana replied in her most reassuring manner. "Don't worry, Ms. Ng, they are very friendly to visitors. Except… The aren't _people_, you know…"


	9. Speak friend and enter?

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 9 

**Another update. Finally.  :) **

Auma sighed skeptically as she went down the steps with the Abbot. "Father Abbot, I have absolutely no idea at all of what you are doing. It is rather dangerous, don't you think, having a group of strangers just coming into our abbey like that – I mean, they are a species absolutely _unknown_ to us… How the Dibbuns will react to them, I don't know, but I'm sure they won't be very happy about it. Oh, and I hope they aren't _dangerous _or anything…"

Abbot Mordalfus seemed perfectly at ease. He even laughed a little after hearing the badger mother's tirade and replied, "I don't see why you are worrying so much about this. After all, you forget that _I _was the one who invited them. I think I have better judgment than to open our gates to enemies, you know. The Dibbuns would enjoy their visit, more likely than not, and as for finding _them_ a threat, well, I think they would find us more of a threat instead. Oh, look, Mother Mellus is already at the gate."

~*~

Miss Ng raised a trembling hand tentatively and knocked once on the gate. There was no reply. 

Turning back to be faced with twenty-eight pairs of anticipating eyes, bespectacled or otherwise, she turned back again, mustered all of her courage and knocked twice again, much harder this time. There was no reply.

Knocking with all her strength one minute later, the door still did not budge and the math teacher's knuckles were very sore already. 

Still her poundings met with no results, good or bad, and Miss Ng was starting to wish that she were back at the school where she would have _blissfully_ been marking _math worksheets_ in the staffroom.

Oh, the irony.

Finally, Mei Keen stomped up to the gate. She was hot and sweaty, and as far as she was concerned, she was going to get into that abbey. She gave the unmoving wooden gate a hard kick and shouted, "oi, open up the damned door lah!"

And then she swaggered proudly backwards a little, returning to the rest of the class, who were now regarding her with awe. 

And the gate swung open.

Immediately, a large black shadow fell over the entire group, and even though Inez did not look up at the sky, she was pretty sure that it was going to start raining pretty soon now. 

Miss Ng could only gulp again in fear. She was, after all, standing only about twenty centimeters from the opened gate now.


	10. Can't think of a name for this chapter

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 10 

Yay… The hols are almost ending, so that means that the next update after school reopens will take maybe around two months, if I am lucky…

"Shit," Fo said under her breath, "I think that's Ma Mellus."

~*~ 

Mother Mellus recoiled in revulsion at the word she had just heard. Matthias did not speak like that, Abbot Mordalfus did not speak like that, the _dibbuns_ did not speak like that, and even (shock horror) _Ambrose Spike_ did not utter even as much as a syllable worth of the above mentioned word. 

She turned back and gave the approaching Abbot a fixed stare. "When Sam said they were uncouth earlier on, I never expected them to be _this_ uncouth."

Abbot Mordalfus only smiled. 

~*~

Miss Ng's neck was craned upwards as she tried to find out how tall the creature obstructing the gateway was. Her neck hurt.

And the storm clouds, or rather, storm cloud cleared. Inez winced as the sunlight was restored to the vicinity, for the contrast in brightness was amazing, almost like day and night. Mrs. Tong muttered something about the speed of light, and Mdm. Azizah tried to calculate which part of the world this particular holiday destination was in. 

Abbot Mordalfus beckoned for Mellus to back from the doorway, and quickly stepped forward. Fixing the twenty-nine humans with a cheery grin, he welcomed them in.

And the fun officially starts from now.

~*~

Half an hour later, the party managed to make their way into the Abbot's study. The journey up almost made the Quest to destroy the One Ring seem like a trip down Candyland. 

Some… events included Owl nearly getting run over by a pack of Dibbuns, Zhao Lao Shi nearly getting run over by the great cheese, Shuwen and Diana engaging in a swearing contest with Mariel, and so on. 

Volunteers to join the Fellowship, anyone?

**Short chappie, I know, but it's dinner time now… Sigh.**


	11. October Ale!

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 11 

And so there they were, twenty-three girls, with mental well-beings ranging from normal to partially damaged to non-existent, sitting, rather, slouching, in the Abbot's study. 

Their teachers were there too, except they were less noticeable as compared to the twelve-year-olds. Zhao Lao Shi was especially adept at blending in to her surroundings (must have some sort of chameleon blood in her) as her face was nicely pale from her earlier encounter with the giant cheese, and it blended in quite well with the whitewashed wall. 

Abbot Mordalfus dominated the most prominent (and the most comfortable) seat of all, but he did not speak, and seemed to be deep in thought as he stared down at his beaker of October ale.

The mother badgers, Auma, Mother Mellus, and Cregga were there too… Somewhere. 

And Matthias just sat there, his face blissfully blank save for a (hideously wide and fake and restrained) grin pasted on it. He was fingering his sword, though, and this alone gave a full indication of his reaction towards these guests.

Saxtus had parchment in one paw, and he was sitting quiet uprightly, apparently waiting for the conference to start. His face had an expression of rapt attention, but Miss Ng and the other teachers knew better; the recorder was twirling his quill idly in his other paw, indicating a physical presence but mental absence in his current state.

"A penny for your thoughts, Abbot," said Simeon from the non-existent corner in which he sat. Everyone jumped, but Mordalfus did not budge, and continued to stare into his beaker, lost in thought as he stared… And stared some more at the swirling liquid inside. 

"I was just thinking," he finally said slowly, "that some of the dibbuns might have put hotroot in my ale."

The mother badgers made mental notes to confront the dibbuns at the next opportunity, Matthias made a mental note to have a talk with Mattimeo, and Simeon…

Well, Simeon only smiled knowingly.


	12. Meet Martin

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 12 

**Author's Notes: This chapter dedicated to Eve because it's her birthday/ almost her birthday! Stay crazy, 'cos we like you the way you are, Ada! *Huggle***

***Now on to the story***

Finally they got down to business, and Mordalfus regained his full attention again. Pushing aside his beaker of hotrooted ale the elderly mouse pushed his glasses and stared around the room in the most intimidating manner a mouse could. 

Evelyn nearly toppled off her chair giggling as the minute creature (which was now her height in Mossflower) turned his stare on her for a split second. Sam Cheok hauled her back onto her seat and impatiently jabbed the sniggering girl in the ribs in a bid to keep her quiet. "Calm down, you idiot."

"Why are we here in this Mossgrass place thingy?" Shu Ning asked, addressing the very question that had been on her classmates' minds. 

Before Mordalfus could reply, Diana turned a death glare on Shu Ning. "Honestly! This place is Moss_flower_, Shu Ning, not Mossgrass!"

"As I was about to say, before I had been interrupted – " Diana snorted at this, "You all have arrived as guests to our abbey. We have requested help, and you all have arrived as apparently planned, although I did not expect so many other people to some along as well." The Abbot fixed the teachers with a bemused smile. Miss Ng shrank back into her corner.

"Why? And – And how?" Sam Wong asked. 

"We need help, you see, since vermin are probably going to try to invade the abbey again. And thus you have come." Mordalfus said very simply, as though the matter was as simple as Dibbuns traipsing to pick strawberries, which it probably was to him.

But to the Mother Badgers, Dibbuns traipsing to pick strawberries was not at all a simple matter, and thus they were rightfully concerned. 

"Why can't we ask Salamandastron for help like we always have done? I mean, we lodge and feed them for quite a while whenever they come by, and that is no mean feat." 

The badgers shuddered simultaneously at the fond memories of half a mountain of hares during the last feast. The three friars never really got over the shock, and they would jump and protectively run to the kitchens now every time the word "Salamandastron" was mentioned. Counseling seemed to be the most feasible option now…

At this question Abbot Mordalfus looked sheepish. "Well, it's not so simple, you see. The last time Rawnblade came here, he woke up in the morning to find his fur dyed bright yellow. He questioned all the Dibbuns about it, since it was quite a humiliating experience, but all of them swore upon raspberry cordial that they did not do anything. I think he would have figured out the culprit by now, so…"

The badgers smiled indulgently at this, while the others looked amused.

Mordalfus calmly continued. "Well, and as for *how* you got here, I'm sure Martin has his methods."

"Martin?" Sara asked blankly. "I thought he's dead."

"Yes I am." Came a distorted voice from somewhere in the ceiling. The humans jumped and looked up as Yvonne shrieked. 

There was Martin the Warrior, as was depicted in the tapestry. Except that well, he was a ghost. 

Shimmering, the dead mouse floated down and scowled at Sara. "I *am* dead, human girl whatever, I'm a ghost. And yes, I was responsible for landing you here." Then his demeanor changed and he leaned forward. "Did the explosion turn out fine? I tried to make it erupt purple smoke instead but it messed up somewhere on the third red wire. Oh well, you're here, and that's what matters, I guess."

"Well, that's nice," Kylie muttered. "Can he send us back?" 

"In due time I will." Martin replied huffily, as though mortally insulted. "Oh, and by the way, Mordalfus, I was one who put that frog under your blankets last night, in case you were wondering."

The Abbot looked rather embarrassed. 


	13. Keys

Adaptations of a Polar Bear: chapter 13 

**Hoom… Exams coming, going to be busy… *sigh* am tired.**

~*~

"How many rooms are there in this place?" Kylie asked, staring about her in awe, looking as though she had stepped into the Buckingham Palace or something. 

The bedraggled group of humans trooped in a group down the candle-lit corridor. They had no guide, since none of the Redwallers had been willing to risk their lives taking their visitors to their rooms. And besides, as Ambrose had so cynically mentioned (Diana had sworn to kill him sometime in the near future) there were only so many places one could get lost in, considering the size of the abbey.

The Abbot had failed to noticed the sarcasm dripping off the celler-keeper's voice like melted ice-cream, and agreed. Hence they were stuck in the corridor, lost in the abbey, and stranded in a place undoubtedly out of their own world. And what was worse to the majority of the non-Redwall reading population was that there was no apparent way to get out of the place, and Martin did not seem inclined to give them any clues either, him being the one who dropped them there in the first place.

The only help they had was extremely vague directions given by a certain abbot, a whole ring of keys to their rooms (considering how Redwall housed the hares, they should have enough to house twenty-nine people) and an extremely irritating ghost hanging behind and terrifying the life out of Nicolette.

"Are you sure you would like to go left? It might be the wrong way, you know." Martin sing-sang mockingly as they came to a junction in the corridor. 

Diana sighed, rolled her eyes, and turned right instead.

"But then again, going to the right isn't such a good idea, m'dear," came the aggravating voice from the back of the group, causing Nicolette to jump and run behind Owl.

"You know, if you weren't already dead I would have killed you by now," Diana replied grouchily but not without a touch of wry humour in her tone. 

Ghost-Martin did an exaggerated mock-bow from where he floated, "I thank you for the compliment. It takes a lot of skill to be a ghost, you know."

Sara sniggered and shot back, "well, then why isn't *Rose* a ghost?" The question seemed innocent enough, considering the fact that Sara had not intended t do anything but aggravate Martin.

However, it seemed to spark a strange reaction as the ghost suddenly lost his smirk and disappeared. Sara raised an eyebrow, "what did I do?"

"Bad mistake, Sara, you know how he reacted, well, in the book, after Rose was killed."

Diana's voice floated to them from down one of the many adjoining corridors. "Hey, people! I've found our rooms."

"Finally!" Eve shouted  and led the rest of the group in the dash to find their lodgings. 

When they came to the row of numbered doors Yen Lin raised an eyebrow in fascination. "I didn't know that the rooms were like hotel rooms. I mean, look at the numbers."

True enough there was an engraved number next to each door.

"Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place…" Shu and Nez promptly started singing. 

"Shut up, you two." Diana snapped. She looked peeved about something.

"What is it, Diana?" Someone asked. 

"This," Diana raised the ring of keys and jingled them, "try to find the keys to each room, and you will see what I mean. The keys aren't numbered."

Martin, who had reappeared at the back of the group again, smirked.

Fo swore. Sara swore. Shu swore. A lot of people swore. And Miss Tan told them to mind their language.

Diana, ever the practical one, had already roped together some people to unlock the doors. 

Damn, they hated keys. They *really* hated keys.


	14. The Alliance

The Adaptations of a Polar Bear: Chapter 14 

**The exams are ooovver! *bounces about randomly* Yayities. For all the insane exams-are-over-and-we're-partying dudes, this chapter's for you! *Grin***

~*~

An agonizing half hour later after unlocking what seemed like a thousand doors, they were sure that they would never want to see another key again. The ring of jingling metal objects was placed on a random bedside table, and it took all the willpower the girls had not to send it flying over to the far end of Salamandastron. After all, as Diana had so pointedly reasoned, they would still need it. 

Then Owl raised the question that had been on their minds. "Erm, guys? You do realize that we'll probably be here for quite a while considering the fact that… Well, the ghost was the one who got us here, and he doesn't seem inclined to get us back?"

"We kind of noticed a while ago," Diana replied curtly, the previous incident with the keys still rankling upon her nerves. 

Uncomfortable silence that followed was punctuated with Kylie's optimistic tone. "Well, if we're discovered gone, they'll send people to look for us? And I'm sure one of them would touch the visualizer and they would find us? Right?"

"You know, if I can send you here, I can stop others from coming here as well." Martin floated in to join the party, his snide remark raising a considerable amount of panic from the others. "And besides, what makes you think we would want more humans over here? You are, I believe, enough to serve our purpose."

"Go away, Martin."

"Oh, that's tough luck. Make me." The ghost replied, an aggravating smirk on his pale translucent face. 

And with that the ghost of a mouse floated away.

The more sardonic people rolled their eyes at the utter irony. 

"You know," Sam Wong piped up in the silence that followed, "if we are going to be stuck here for quite a while, wouldn't we have much less time to study for the *PSLE? I mean, if we ever get back to school – which I hope we would, in time for the exams – we'll be missing out on a lot of revision."

Suddenly the entire class looked very alarmed, even more than they had been when they had first realized that they were in Mossflower. The teachers too, looked distinctively troubled.

"And we have the other classes to teach too," Mrs. Tong said.

"Oh, the school will get relief teachers, I'm sure," Mei Keen said briskly, too preoccupied with her own prospect of missing the biggest exam in all of her six years of primary school.

"We could get our bags here, though. I'm sure we have our notes and stuff in them, and we do have the teachers for convenient reference." Po Linn said, and quickly shrank back from the glares of her teachers, they being rather unhappy at the prospect at being called "convenient reference".

"How?"

"Martin has his ways," Sara said, catching on with a grin.

"We'll just have to persuade him to help us." Shu finished, sounding more confident about the idea than she really was. 

The others nodded slowly. Exams were important, and the Primary School Leaving Examination was even more so.

~*~

"Martin?"

"What do you want?" The ghost did not turn from his current task of rigging up a makeshift pulley.

"Can you help us?"

There was no reply, and the ghost merely continued to fix wires onto the attic walls, looping rope here, tying another knot there.

Curious, the six diplomats sent to negotiate with the mouse leaned forward to see what the precocious creature was up to.

Owl gasped when she realized what was going on. "Martin, why are you fixing a pulley into that mouse's room?"

Martin gave a hiss in annoyance and alarm as her voice resounded throughout the musty attic, bouncing off the walls loudly. "Keep quiet! I'm not supposed to be up here, they'll hear me! What do you want, go away." He waved them off with a pale paw, the other latched tightly on the length of rope.

"But why are you fixing a pulley into that mouse's room?" Sara repeated Owl's question even louder, grinning as the ghost fixed her with a jaundiced look.

"He's not 'that mouse', for one, he's Matthias. And it's not of your business what I am doing now. Go away." Martin growled.

"But we need your help, you imbecile of a dead mouse," Diana shot back as quickly as the sentence came, pleased to note that the dead warrior of Redwall actually looked alarmed at the insult. 

Sighing, Martin waved a paw. "Shoot."

"We need our school bags, and our files, and all other educational material currently in our classroom, which I am sure is in a derelict state by now," Diana said testily.

"Throw in all the *non-educational* stuff as well, will you?" Shu added, grinning very meaningfully. 

Martin merely smiled indulgently. "What makes you think I'll help you?"

"We know, for one, that Mordalfus has put a certain limit on the places you can float to, with the help of the mother badgers and Ambrose Spike to reinforce that. And we do know," Sara continued triumphantly, smirking as the ghost took on a look of one mortally insulted, "that those are the places that you would like to set up traps in, such as the Abbot's room, which was where the frog from the Abbey Pond had so conveniently found its way into the Abbot's bed."

Martin actually looked pleased at the mention of his latest prank, but he quickly resumed his taciturn demeanour. "So?"

The grin never left Sara's face as she continued, "we could always help you, you know. It's not like we have never played pranks before."

The others sniggered at her last line, which made a lot of sense to them. Martin looked rather pleased by the suggestion, and he finally nodded, his ghostly head bobbing up and down. 

"All right then."

An alliance had been formed between ghost and humans.

Poor Mordalfus.


	15. Of homework, whiteboards, and Matthias' ...

The Adaptations of A Polar Bear: Chapter 15 

**It is officially the last day of secondary school today… I made it to secondary two! Yay!**

**…Enough said.**

~*~

When the six diplomats got back to their lodgings they were immediately met with a hell lot of hubbub and attention.

"How was it? Did he agree?"

"Yes, yes he did."

"How?"

"I told you, we have volunteered to help in his… pranks."

Mei Keen raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What pranks?"

Po Linn smirked. "Evil pranks. Now, what do you all need? Our dear ghost has agreed to send them over now."

~*~

In less than fifteen minutes their bags had fallen from nowhere, totally defying the purpose of having ceilings, considering the fact that they seemed to fall through them. After several thoughtful bags landing on random heads and people scuffling for their own educational rights the room calmed down sufficiently. 

The OASWHC (as mentioned in the seventh chapter) were sitting in a perfect circle with a proper radius and circumference. "Understanding our Past" was the reference text in question as highlighters diligently highlighted the main points of the concept of the Housing Development Board. Mdm. Azizah almost cried with relief as she sat by, correcting their social studies worksheets; at least she was currently teaching the more docile ones. 

Miss Ng and Mrs. Tong, however, were currently wishing that they were supervising lower primary recess. Teaching 6I was bad enough, but teaching a hyperactive and sprawled-on-the-floor half of 6I was beyond what they considered as profession; it was more of a severe test of expertise. 

The Ministry of Education had them trained to conduct lessons in classrooms in four walls and ceiling fans with fluorescent lightings and the students on chairs at desks, not in a packed dormitory with people lying on carpets or slouching on a bunk bed.

The worse part of it? Redwall had _no whiteboard_. Oh the horror. You could just see the galvanized look on Miss Ng's face when she whirled instinctively around to demonstrate an algebra problem with her marker on hand only to almost decapitate herself on a blank wall. 

In the end the math teacher had to spend the time recovering from the eye-to-eye incident with the white-washed wall and Mrs. Tong was forced to take over. 

Some of the girls in the class, namely Diana, Shu, Inez, Po Linn and Sara were missing from this study group. They had gone off to acknowledge their recent alliance with a certain diabolical supernatural being, and were not very likely to be due until the evening, in which the abbot would invite the guests down for the feast. 

… In which the time in between allowed for a lot to happen.

~*~

Shrieking came from a certain room in a certain corridor in the abbey. 

Inside, Matthias was flouncing about the room, lifting up the rug here, upsetting a bedside table there. His family and all other abbey members had thoughtfully vacated the area around the room as though it were a nuclear zone. 

"Where is it? I swore I left it here just now!"

Mother Mellus ventured bravely forward to stick her head in the doorway, ducking slightly as an ornamental vase flew out of the room, its contents littering the floor with flowers. "What's wrong, Matthias?"

The disgruntled mouse managed to pause slightly as he shot the badger a death glare, the situation not improving his foul mood any. "Someone took my sword."

Mother Mellus nodded in sympathy, "well, I hope you find it soon. I'll tell you if I see it."

She then promptly backed out and went down the corridor, leaving Matthias to his search. Somehow she had a very strong feeling she knew who had taken the weapon in question. The mother badger stifled her silent chuckles.

Another vase flew out from the room.

~*~

From a gap in the attic the six miscreants watched the warrior in placid amusement. 

Sara fingered the well-crafted sword in awe, her eyes shining so brightly she reminded Po Linn acutely of Gollum. 

Martin smirked slightly. "He would have guessed it was me by now, but he wouldn't be finding it so easily. I need your help very much now."

  
Shu tore her eyes away from the ruckus in the room below. "Why?"

Martin did an exaggerated mock-bow. "You would be taking a little trip down to the cellars soon."


End file.
